Annabelle: Creation

Annabelle: Creation (2017)

Starring Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson, Anthony LaPaglia, and Miranda Otto

Directed by David F. Sandberg

Written by Gary Dauberman

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C+

Movie Review - Stephen King's A Good Marriage

Stephen King's A Good Marriage (2014)

Starring Joan Allen, Anthony LaPaglia and Stephen Lang 

Directed by Peter Askin

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

No one will ever mistake Stephen King for one of America's best authors, but I certainly have enjoyed reading his works in the past.  Because of this, the use of the King's name in the title of Stephen King's A Good Marriage coupled with a starring role by Joan Allen had me thinking that there might be potential in this horror piece.  Unfortunately, the lack of even a theatrical release beyond a handful of theaters should've clued me in to the disappointment ahead.

Allen is Darcy Anderson, a loving housewife married to salesman Bob (Anthony LaPaglia).  Together, they have two grown children and a seemingly lovely life.  However, their small town in Maine has recently been under attack by an apparent serial killer intent on offing women, stealing their ID's, and then sending them to the police in a cheeky "You can't get me" fashion.  When Bob is away on a business trip, Darcy uncovers a stash of information that leads her to believe that Bob may be the murderer -- and, needless to say, their relationship finds itself on shaky ground.

Ultimately the film's downfall is that there's nary a suspenseful moment in it.  Thirty minutes in -- SPOILER ALERT (although it happens thirty minutes in so the film doesn't hide things for all that long) -- Bob admits to being the killer and from that point on all we get are scenes of Joan Allen unsure of how to react to her husband's "other life."  Perhaps aiming for more of a weird relationship "drama" than anything else, King's short novella upon which this film is based must have worked better on the page than in his own screenplay adaptation.  Here, it's a bit of a snoozefest.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Guys

The Guys (2002)

Starring Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia

Directed by Jim Simpson

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

"New York. My beautiful, gleaming, wounded city."  So begins The Guys, likely one of (if not) the first film take on the 9/11 tragedy.  As we near the tenth anniversary of this day that changed our country forever, I wanted to take a look at a cinematic take of the event.  Taking place in the days immediately following that fateful Tuesday in 2001, The Guys (based on a play by Anne Nelson) focuses on an editor named Joan (Sigourney Weaver) who helps fire chief Nick Costello (Anthony LaPaglia) write eulogies for the members of his company that died that day.

Despite two very good performances including a particularly excellent and sometimes heartbreaking turn from Anthony LaPaglia's guilt-ridden fire chief Nick, the flick feels a little uneven.  Nick's character arc is certainly touching and well-written, but the role of Joan is a much trickier one and it's here where The Guys falters.  To me, Joan (who narrates the picture) is presented as being the heart of the film (and I'm not so sure that's a positive).  Here is a New Yorker who, despite not knowing anyone who was closely affected by the attacks, was deeply affected by that day's events.  By talking with Nick and doing what she does best -- writing -- she manages to express her feelings as well.  While I fully accept and acknowledge that she is deserving of feeling grief, her pain ends up paling in comparison to that of Nick and I think the film attempts to place the two characters on an equal playing field in that department.  I'm not making a judgment as to whether their respective grief should be equal or not, but if the film was attempting to try and state that (which in some ways, I think it was), it just doesn't succeed in showing us an equivalent grief in Joan.  Bookending scenes with Joan spouting some odd thought probably worked very well on stage (and probably made the two characters more of an "equal"), but in the film, it just doesn't work.

The Guys isn't a bad film.  In fact, I give it much credit for coming out so soon after the tragedy.  It's a simple glimpse into the lives of two different New Yorkers days after the events of 9/11.  Still, when that list of firefighters who gave their lives rolls by at the film's end, you can't help but get a little choked up even if the flick doesn't succeed on all levels.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

Featuring the voices of Jim Sturgess, Helen Mirren, Sam Neill, Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving, and Anthony LaPaglia

Directed by Zack Snyder

An ungainly title leads to a rather ungainly movie in The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.  While the film looks quite lush and is beautifully animated, I was insanely bored while watching it.

First, the story seems oddly simple and convoluted at the same time.  The basis of the tale is one parliament of good owls fighting against one parliament of bad owls. [Yes, a group of owls is called a "parliament."]  However, things get much more complicated.  Soren and his brother Kludd are two owls learning how to fly.  One evening, they're essentially kidnapped by a group headed by Metalbeak who desires to create a race of "Pure Ones" by eradicating all owls that would not fit into this category -- very WWII Germany.  While Soren manages to escape, Kludd immediately begins to side with Metalbeak's gang, setting up the brother against brother storyline that's only one part of this mishmash of tales.  Once Soren flees, he meets up with some other owls who play no significant role except to be either helpful or careless depending on what the story calls for at that time.  Together, this group of owls travels to the land of Ga'Hoole where the good owls live -- the ones who will do whatever it takes to rid the world of Metalbeak and his followers.

Egads...way too much story there.  Still, despite the abundance of plot, the movie goes nowhere.  It's an oddly simple "journey tale" where the good guy meets other good guys along the way who help him defeat the bad guy.  

Adding to the ennui are characters that, while well animated, have no significant individual development.  There are scads of owls that are introduced that seriously serve no purpose whatsoever.  And when the owls themselves all look alike, adding more to the mix doesn't help matters.  

Additionally, and I'm not trying to sound overly nationalistic here, but the Australian and British accents had a way of lulling me into a sense of sleep.  I understand that owls themselves are rather regal, stoic creatures and the foreign accents may have fit the bill, but they also added an aire of pretentiousness that this movie didn't need in the slightest.

All my qualms are rather unfortunate because the film looks quite lovely.  The animation is great and, being somewhat of an animation geek, I was quite impressed with the mouth movements and facial expressions of the characters.  There was a very natural feel to the whole proceeding, so it's a real shame that the story falls tremendously flat.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+